Blogs

Getting to the nub of it

It will not have escaped sport-loving Rusters that the Easter weekend was loaded to the gills with action across the board – I shall just cite in evidence the fact that the business ends of football’s European Champions and Europa Leagues are in full sway and the English Premiership and [...]

April 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

Where we are now

And so it has come to this … Never mind the entire from-start-to-finish Brexit horlicks; The original 2016 (“once in a generation”) EU Referendum, the result of which the Government promised in advance to implement; The allegations that the Leave campaign, or part of it, breached Electoral [...]

April 21, 2019 // 0 Comments

EDITORIAL – The exciting times we live in

It is incontestable that the average punter on the proverbial Clapham omnibus could be forgiven for thinking that the world has lost both its marbles and bearings and has taken a one-way ticket to Hell in a handcart. These days you can go to bed day-dreaming up the whackiest and most unlikely [...]

April 20, 2019 // 0 Comments

Those “I was there” moments (sort of)

One of the oddities of life are those occasions when one has a brush, however slight or inconsequential, with an event of great historical importance e.g. whilst watching television. Delving back into the mists of time as I begin typing I can think of two representative examples my personal past [...]

April 18, 2019 // 0 Comments

Coming to terms with it – and life

There is little more calculated to slap you in the face with reminders of your age and mortality than family gatherings – and I mean that in both a good and a bad way. Last weekend I attended the wedding of a niece – inevitably a joyous and chaotic occasion as these always are – at which, at [...]

April 16, 2019 // 0 Comments

A literary discovery from the 1920s

It was both a little surprising but also perhaps a sign of the times to learn by chance recently that the BBC One’s Antiques Roadshow programme – now occupying the 8.00pm transmission slot on Sunday evenings – is celebrating its fortieth anniversary in this year. I open with that [...]

April 16, 2019 // 0 Comments

What’s it all about, Alfie?

The current sporting cause célèbre of Aussie rugby player Israel Folau’s anti-gay public statements is fascinating and one that tends to invite the average punter like myself to mine at the rich seam of phrases tending towards cliché such as ‘a game of two halves’, ‘seeing both sides of [...]

April 12, 2019 // 0 Comments

Heralding the real start of spring

Lovers of all sports will turn an admiring and/envious eye towards the annual publication of the Wisden – cricket’s Bible from practically year dot of the game as the 19th and 20th Centuries knew it – and so today we provide a link to Vic Marks’ appreciation of the yellow [...]

April 11, 2019 // 0 Comments

Celebrating an honoured institution

In this funny old world we inhabit – and this is not a blog about Brexit or President Trump – it’s sometimes reassuring to find one’s faith in some of our traditional institutions confirmed. I’m not a political animal myself, but over past decades the National Health Service (or [...]

April 10, 2019 // 0 Comments

Prom revisited and poor letting practice

Yesterday on a gloriously sunny day when the temperature reached 21 degrees we made a long walk on the Prom to an apartment block well past the Negresco. The reason for this is that sadly the flat we have rented is going to be sold and if we are to revisit Nice we must relocate. A balcony is an [...]

April 9, 2019 // 0 Comments

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Metropolis/Philip Kerr

April 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

Metropolis is the final novel of Philip Kerr, published posthumously as he died of cancer on 23rd March 2018 aged 62. It’s also the final one in the Bernie Gunther series. [...]
Getting to the nub of it

April 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

It will not have escaped sport-loving Rusters that the Easter weekend was loaded to the gills with action across the board – I shall just cite in evidence the fact that the [...]
Fabio Fognini wins in Monte Carlo

April 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

Last Monday week, when Fabio Fognini was one set down and losing 5-1 to Russian Andrey Reble, I never thought that I was watching the future champion who triumphed over [...]
Waitrose v locals

April 22, 2019 // 0 Comments

Waitrose has come to represent more than just a premium food store but symbolic of the liberal metro intelligentsia. In the Rust and beyond a Waitrose shopper means you are a [...]
Scott Parker: the case for and against

April 21, 2019 // 0 Comments

Fulham ‘s first away win at Bournemouth in a year solidifies the case for Scott Parker’s permanent appointment. Here I draw up the pros and cons: Pros 1) Fulham have had [...]